Tran Huy Hoang stares in shock at the images of four Vietnamese teenagers slapping and kicking a girl whose hands try to shield the blows.
“How could schoolgirls act so much like gangsters?” asks Hoang, the father of a 14-year-old girl, as he watches the video clip — apparently filmed by another teenager — posted on the YouTube Web site.
The girls pulled off their victim’s T-shirt and bra, leaving her half-naked.
Photo: AFP
It was one of several clips showing violence among Vietnamese youth that have circulated on the Internet over the past year, sparking concern about the media’s role and a breakdown of -family-centered social values in the rapidly modernizing society.
“The traditional values are vanishing, while new values are not enough to replace them,” education expert Pham Toan, 80, said.
Sociologists say there is no data to capture trends in the violence, but it appears to be increasing as social mores change, although the problem is not confined to Vietnam.
“We have to accept the fact that youth violence seems to become more popular,” said Hoang Ba Thinh, a professor of social work at Vietnam National University.
Influenced by Confucian values, Vietnam’s young people traditionally had respect for teachers, parents and the elderly. Rich and poor alike were taught the value of labor rather than of money itself, Toan said.
“If a piece of rice fell from the bowl to the floor, the elderly in the family would remind them that a grain of rice was a seed of gold,” he said.
Parents now have less time for the family as they pursue material wealth, he said.
“In the society now, people only pay attention to earning money and spending it rampantly,” Toan said.
Now, even though traditional moral principles are taught at school, those virtues are not reinforced at home, because parents are focused more on improving their lifestyle, and this leaves youngsters confused, he added.
After years of poverty following the country’s reunification in 1975 at the end of the Vietnam War, Vietnam in 1986 began to embrace the free market under economic reforms known as doi moi.
The move eventually led to a growth rate among the highest in Asia, and a per capita income that is now about US$1,200.
During wartime and the -period of economic hardship that followed, “people were more humane, more passionate and ready to share with each other both sweetness and bitterness,” said Trinh Hoa Binh, from the Institute of Sociology.
People are now so burdened with worries over covering their cost of living, “just a minor car accident or a bad glance can easily result in violence,” he said.
While foreigners still see Vietnam as one of the safest countries in Asia, locals are increasingly concerned. Youth violence became a hot topic in online news sites over the past year in Vietnam, where nearly 20 percent of the 86 million people are between 15 and 24 years old.
In one of the more serious cases, a 15-year-old boy in Dalat was stabbed to death by two other grade nine students, VNExpress news site reported. The motive for the killing was unclear.
There were nearly 1,600 cases of violence in and outside schools in the 2009-2010 academic year, according to Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training figures cited by Lao Dong newspaper.
More than 2,400 students had been reprimanded for their acts, while hundreds were temporarily suspended from school, it said.
The unrest stemmed from the students’ lack of “life skills, self-restraint and appropriate behavior to solve minor and simple quarrels” the report said, citing the ministry.
Along with weaker parental supervision, young people are subjected to “rampant violent images” in the mass media, online games and films, Binh said.
However, Vietnam lacks effective social organizations for helping to improve the situation, Toan said.
“I think we are now living in an irresponsible society, with people tending to stay away from community and public activities,” he said.
The main social organizations — such as those for youth and women — are linked to the state, with few independent non--governmental groups.
For 36-year-old mother Luu Thi Mai, proper parental care is the answer.
“I give her my best care, teaching her right from wrong, sending her to a good school with well-behaved students,” the office worker said while waiting for her daughter outside a public school in Hanoi.
However, just in case of trouble, Mai said she still sends her 11-year-old girl to karate classes — “not to attack others, but to know how to defend herself.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese